


Dreams

by keepfabandgayon



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Telepathic Bond, The Drift (Pacific Rim), could be friendship or romantic, depends on how you wanna see it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-14
Packaged: 2017-12-23 12:42:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/926560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keepfabandgayon/pseuds/keepfabandgayon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Observers of the Hong Kong Shatterdome K-Science lab often described it as something like "a space which has been the unfortunate victim of a unstoppable force meeting an immoveable object."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> written for jaegercon 2013 bingo

Observers of the Hong Kong Shatterdome K-Science lab often described it as something like "a space which has been the unfortunate victim of a unstoppable force meeting an immoveable object." The reason for this was that the large door was mostly on Newton's side of the room, and his brightly-coloured tissue samples attracted far more attention than Hermann's desk, computer, and chalkboard. It was a good description anyway; the two scientists were very much the unstoppable force and immoveable object, and this was the room where they made their (grudging and often-ignored) compromises. 

The day the breach closed marked the only time since they'd been shoved together in this lab that it was the quietest room in the entire Shatterdome. 

It was to the lab that Mako and Raleigh escaped the moment that no-one was looking, desperate for some silence, because while they wanted to celebrate before they had to mourn, they wanted to rest before they had to celebrate. They found a clear space on the floor -- on Hermann's side -- and sat down. Legs crossed, knees bumping together, heads bowed forward, foreheads pressing against each other, they floated aimlessly through the remaining tether of the Drift that pulled them together, until it faded away completely. Then they picked themselves up off the floor and joined the party, which hadn't died down a bit. 

The usual occupants of that lab, however, dragged each other around the party as it moved from LOCCENT to the now unoccupied Jaeger hangars. Newt was still riding the adrenaline-fuelled high that got him through the last day and a half of saving the world, and Hermann knew he wouldn't sleep with Newt's thoughts running through his head, so he allowed himself to be pulled through the crowd by the arm around his shoulders, his arm, his waist, wherever Newt found a hold, and did a little pulling of his own when he needed to remind Newt to get some water or food into his system alongside all the alcohol that had appeared out of no-where. 

The unstoppable force of Newton's energy finally ran out the evening of the day the breach was sealed. He was talking to a few Jaeger technicians, telling the story of how he almost got eaten by Otachi, when he let out a loud yawn. Hermann knew from a mix of observing Newton's highs and lows and Newton's own memories that there were about ten minutes left before he'd have a lap full of sleeping biologist. 

Newt had the same idea, and stood up, swaying a little. "Sorry, I'm gonna have to tell you the rest later. Rockstars have to sleep too. C'mon, Hermann."

That last bit was unexpected, but Hermann stood all the same and followed. They passed Mako and Raleigh, who were just rejoining the party, as they went out the door into the smaller hallways. Their rooms were more than twenty minutes away, especially at the slow pace they were moving at, so Hermann steered a rapidly deflating Newton towards the lab and dropped him onto the couch in the corner. Newt started snoring lightly as soon as he was horizontal, and Hermann draped his coat over him. 

He sat down at his computer and spent the next few hours writing up the events of the past day and a half -- his side and Newt's -- while he yawned repeatedly and yet knew he'd not get a wink of sleep while Newton's memories and thoughts (and now his dreams, damn residual Drift) pressed up against his. 

Writing about their Drift was... difficult. He didn't note any of the thoughts they'd shared, and stuck to what they'd learned from the dying foetal Kaiju. But he did share, mostly for the sake of not wanting to be asked later, that he and Newt were Drift-compatible. 

Which made him wonder; what if they hadn't been? Hermann volunteered himself to jump into the Kaiju's head alongside Newt, and it had never occurred to him that they might not be able to share the neural load, or that their minds might reject one-another and they'd be in even more danger than before. It was as if he somehow knew that it would work. 

Which, well, that was. Hm. 

Herman came out of his thoughts and saw that he'd typed the number '42' for no reason. He deleted it, but then Newt stirred. 

" _Life, the universe, and everything_. You ever read that?"

"Yes. I took the class on speculative fiction a year before you did."

"You didn't go to MIT."

"I took a semester abroad. Why did you make me write that?" _More importantly, how?_

"That's what they were to me. The Kaiju." Hermann looked over; Newt was sitting up and rubbing his left eye. His hand came away, and Hermann saw it was still tinged with red. "Yeah, I know. I was part of a push to get rid of them, I should've known better than to make them my life. But, you know. They were amazing."

"And now you don't know what you're going to do with your life."

"Yeah. I guess that's why I crashed so hard. I was telling my story, and I thought ' _what am I gonna do now?_ ' and it was like the room was suddenly too small. Like the world was too small."

Hermann crossed the room and dropped himself down next to Newt. He felt a twinge of pain in his leg; he attributed it to all the running he'd done recently. 

"What are you gonna do?"

"I don't know. I'm sure someone will offer me something. I might even stay here. You know they're going to try again."

"Yeah. Did you put that in the report? Of course you did. Stupid question."

They fell silent, and Hermann yawned once again. Newt put his arm around Hermann's shoulders once more and pulled him in close. Herman leaned his head against Newt's shoulder and slowly fell asleep. The residual Drift still hummed somewhere in the back of his mind, but it was quieter now, and full of a sleepy warmth. 

Or maybe that was just Newt. 

Hermann's dreams were strange to him; he'd never floated in an ocean before (and probably never would, what with all the Kaiju Blue still out there) but he found himself surrounded by sea as far as the eye could see. He floated alone for a while, letting the waves and wind push him gently. Then he reached out his arms, and one hand found another. He looked over, and Newt was there, holding his hand and facing up, eyes closed, smiling gently at the sun.


End file.
